Long before the likes of Jim Carrey or Mike Myers were introduced came another actor that was so good at being unconventional, he both encouraged and defied type casting as a "funny man." His name was Peter Sellers and to this day, turning over in his grave after watching Steve Martin's interpretation of Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the abysmal The Pink Panther 2006, he detested the hilarity of the Pink Panther films.

Yes, ironically, The Pink Panther, as we remember it, was his creation. Peter Sellers stole the show from David Niven and director Blake Edwards by incorporating his own comic sensibility into the film. It would later come to be only his second biggest regret. This is because, while there are many actors in Hollywood who have been typecast and have suffered considerably (no chance of Gary Coleman playing a gangster in a Hughes Brothers film) Peter Sellers biggest regret was that Inspector Clouseau was the closest thing to a human identity the man had ever found.

Peter Sellers was something beyond funny. Playing funny was something he did as an act of rebellion. While he probably would have loved to play the roles of Johnny Depp or at least inhabited the aura of Andy Kaufman, he was perceived as a slapstick comic, an actor adept at knowing the human funny bone. It's very possible that Peter Sellers didn't know how to rebel against typecasting at the time and had no choice but to rebel against the system that created his suffering--you know, by being an a**hole.

This is one of many themes that the HBO original movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers suggests, along with the far more cruel observation that Peter Sellers did not truly have an identity, but that he was a manic-depressive man-child, capable of only simulated emotion. This is perfectly illustrated in Geoffrey Rush's manic performance as Sellers and in Stephen Hopkins direction which blends surrealism with revisionist history and beautiful recreations of some of the best scenes in movie history.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a vindictive judgment of Sellers, a criticism of his humanity, which is truly the lowest blow. However, the film does kindly point out Seller's career high in the movie Being There, directed by Hal Ashby. Being There is truly a magical movie that walks the fine line between comedy and tragedy, perhaps the closest genuine tribute to a Chaplin film made in movie history. This film remains Seller's crowning achievement as a true method actor, not just a funny man or a humorless Brit. It's the film that set the precedent for the typecasting revolts that have today recreated Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey, Will Smith and Jamie Foxx. It also was the first of many films to come that highlighted the beauty, the innocence and the joy of stupidity--not the generational demonization of stupidity, as if being stupid is something willful that clings to bathroom humor and shock performance art, but the true definition which is, "indicative of low intelligence or poor learning abilities."

Indeed, after you learn the complexities and injustices of the rational world, stupidity is the depressive's solace. In my opinion (admittedly biased by my own perceptions as well as the HBO movie which has been publicly decried by Michael Sellers, Peter's long-suffering son) Peter Sellers found peace in his life by avoiding the truth of human nature, and by retreating into states of incomprehension. Perhaps Dr. Strangelove, Chauncey Gardener and Inspector Clouseau were all Peter's ways of communicating with the world, a world he could not understand unless he channeled someone as foolish as all of us, the ones unfortunate enough to live in the same strange world.

The real question is, was Peter Sellers really any of the above? Was he a method actor who just got lost in the madness of theater? Was he an odious and unpleasant man who detested Hollywood's superficiality? Was he truly an atypical creature, one bordering on insanity, or was he carefully crafted reflection of society's own out of control ego? Perhaps before analyzing his most severe criticism (and only cinematic speculation available on his private life) in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, we should take Sellers at his own words, courtesy of Inspector Clouseau: "At times like this, I wish I was but a simple peasant."

GRADES
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers: A-
Being There: A
Dr. Strangelove: A
The Pink Panther Series: B+